This invention relates to furnaces capable of effectively utilizing sawdust and similar low-cost "waste" materials as fuel. The invention more specifically relates to a waste-burning furnace that, although capable of other uses, is particularly adapted for the heating of tobacco curing and drying barns.
Many tobacco barns heretofore have been heated by oil-fired furnaces. Due to the increasing price of fuel oil, however, there now is an acute need for an alternative and more economical means for heating tobacco barns. One such alternative means is a furnace fueled by sawdust and similar "waste" material, such as wood chips, vegetable stalks and the like, that usually may be procured in rural environments at little or no cost. If such a furnace is to be commercially acceptable, however, it must not only be capable of efficiently burning waste material of the foregoing type, but must also satisfy other requirements. It should be relatively inexpensive to purchase and install, bearing in mind that a typical tobacco grower may have several tobacco barns, each requiring heating during only a relatively brief part of each year. The furnace should also be capable of automatic operation with only minimal operator-attention. A furnace requiring too-frequent operator attention for re-fueling, ash removal and/or proper temperature maintenance (which is critical to the drying and curing of tobacco) would be unacceptable. Additionally, the furnace should be exceedingly durable and easy to maintain and repair, since any prolonged interruption of its operation during the heating of a tobacco barn could detrimentally affect the tobacco's quality.